


The Bold and the Beautiful

by Crollalanza



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, Pining, Regrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-12-01 15:37:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11489421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crollalanza/pseuds/Crollalanza
Summary: It had been eight years since he'd seen him, but in the middle of his birthday party, Daichi discovers Suga hiding in his bedroom, and he wants to know why they lost touch.





	The Bold and the Beautiful

**Author's Note:**

> written for Day three of daisugaweek2017 - the prompt was Shy or Bold. I've used both.

“All I’m saying, Sawamura, is that you’re not exactly _bold_.”

“No, what you’re saying is I’m boring,” Daichi replied.

Kuroo shook his head. “Boring wasn’t the word I used. You’re ... uh ... conventional. And kind of background, like wallpaper. That ain’t a bad thing, you know?”

“So I’m as boring as wallpaper and you say that’s not a bad thing,” Daichi replied. He laughed, not wanting to get into an argument, not tonight. “Thanks!”

“You’re not noticed,” Kuroo said, and leant towards him, tipping his beer bottle to his lips. “But you get the job done. And on court that’s a great thing, ‘cause the opposition don’t take you into account, but here ...”He bent down, rasping in Daichi’s ear. “This is a party, Sawamura, liven up!”

“In what way? You want me to get on the dance floor? Bust some moves? Lead the singing?”

“Yeah right. Just ... I don’t know, take that fricking tie off for one thing. Down some shots. Live a little!”

“I am living,” Daichi retorted. “Just not to your prescription of ‘fun’.”

“Boring.”

“Try hard!” Daichi lurched off the wall. “I’m going to get some air.”

“It better just be air. Don’t you even think about sneaking outta here early!”

“It’s our apartment, Kuroo, where would I go?”

There was a crowd by the front door, and the balcony leading off the lounge was full. Wellwishers, teammates, old college friends and family, all congregating to wish him a ‘Happy Birthday’ and see in the New Year. And Daichi was grateful, really he was, because everyone had made an effort, but he’d not wanted a party. A few beers and a takeaway pizza would have done him. Chatting with mates, and not this spectacle Kuroo had organised, where he had to be ‘on form’ and amenable to everyone.

“Daichiiiiiii,” someone shrieked.

He turned to locate the voice, but not recognising the girl, he slipped eel-like through the throng and away to his room. He wanted quiet. He wanted solitude on his own balcony – at least for a while. Despite it being his own party, he didn’t think anyone would miss him.

_I’m the background guy,_ he thought. _The wallpaper._

It was the one room that was out of bounds. Daichi had ensured this by locking up and hiding the key on the door lintel, but as he slid his hand along the woodwork and found nothing, he tried the door and groaned to find it unlocked.

No doubt, there’d be a shagging couple in his bed, or someone passed out and in danger of yocking all over the floor. He creaked the door open, quite prepared to drag whoever’d broken in out to the hall and then slam the door shut on them.

But there was no one in his bed. Maybe he’d been mistaken and he hadn’t locked the door. Perhaps Kuroo had unlocked it and hidden the key.

Or ...

There was a light flooding through from his balcony, filtered only slightly by the cold breeze fluttering the dark curtains.

Someone’s out there ...

A burglar?

But his wardrobe was untouched, and his chest of drawers hadn’t been ransacked, either. His TV was still on the stand, as was his iPod and camera.

Striding to the window, he wrenched it open. “This room’s out of bounds. You’ll have to ... Oh ... ”

The figure huddled in the chair wasn’t a stranger, or an acquaintance from volleyball. Nor a teammate, or someone from his family. The person sitting on his balcony, with his knees drawn up to his chest and a scarf (pale blue) wound tight around his neck was a friend, an old friend, one he hadn’t seen for eight whole years.

“Suga?”

He jerked out of the chair, his blond hair glimmering in the lamplight. “Oh my ... Oh ... my, I am so sorry, Daichi. I ... uh ... really shouldn’t be in here, should I?  And ... wow, you didn’t even know I was here, and you certainly didn’t invite me and ... um ... Hi there!” He laughed – not lightly the way Daichi remembered, but tight and strained. “I should ... um ... leave. Yes, that’s what I’ll do. Right away.”

“You’re here!” Daichi said, aware he was stating the bloody obvious.

“Um ... yes ... yes, I guess I am.” Suga gave him a wobbly sort of smile. “I bumped into Nishinoya and he said there was this party and I should come along, so ... um ... yeah, here I am!” He swallowed. “That’s okay, isn’t it?”

“Course! This is ... this is ... brilliant. Only ... why _didn’t_ you come over and say hi?”

A thousand questions jumped to his lips, a thousand ways of asking, ‘What happened to you?’ and ‘Why didn’t you keep in touch?’ because the world and her wife knew he’d written and texted and emailed and tried every which way to stay in contact with Suga. But his Vice-Captain had dissolved from his life when they’d started college. With Daichi in Tokyo, Suga had spent a year in Osaka and then moved abroad to study.  It shouldn’t have been difficult to keep in contact, but Daichi had found it progressively harder when faced with late replies, excuses that seemed as flimsy as smoke, finally coming to the conclusion that his best friend was a former best friend, and one who’d decided to move on.

And the ache in Daichi’s chest had lessened only with time. (And when he didn’t sit and wonder what could have been ...)

“Ha ... bit shy,” Suga replied, his voice slightly shrill.

“You, shy?” Daichi grinned, and sat in the chair next to Suga. “Not the boy I remember from school.”

“Well, school was different. I knew everyone there.” He sniffed. “No need to ask how you are, big volleyball star! And living with Kuroo, now! Not that I was ... uh ... spying or anything.”

“Huh?”

“That’s ... um ... not why I broke into your bedroom to see what ... uh ...” Suga shook his head. “Sorry, I came here because I needed to think what to say, and ... um ... well, I’ve not made a very good job of it. Ha!” He rubbed the back of his head, and his feathery soft hair danced around his face. “Wow, I’m dumb!”

“Suga?”

“Like, you always said I overthought things, and this, well, yes, I have gone over this exact scenario so many times in my head and yet, look at me, I’m still a babbling mess. And what you must be thinking, heaven only knows. I’m –”

“Suga!”

“What?” He jerked his head up from the contemplation of his fingers and stared at Daichi.

_How could I have forgotten how beautiful his eyes were?_

“What did you want to say?” Daichi asked gently.

“You-” Suga heaved out a breath. “You’re happy, I hope.”

“Moderately.” Daichi’s lips twitched.

“Together, I mean.”

“Together?”

“You and ... um ... Kuroo.”

Snorting, Daichi grinned across at Suga. “We’re flatmates. Well, he’s my lodger, actually.”

“Lodger?”

“Yeah, I’m a highly responsible and very boring person who’s ploughed their earnings into property. Kuroo pays me rent and then hightails it to nightclubs, while I stay in watching TV.”

“So, you’re not ... um ... together?”

“Me and Kuroo?” He laughed and shook his head. “We get on fine, but I’m wallpaper, apparently.”

“Huh?”

“Background,” Daichi explained. “Dull. Not bold.”

Suga unfurled his legs, stretching out, and kept his eyes on Daichi. “That doesn’t sound like the boy I knew from school,” he said, echoing Daichi’s sentiment.

“Pardon.”

“Our brave Captain, leading us onto court. Never showing any fear. You were the epitome of bold, Captain Sawamura.” He gave another smile, this time wistful. “I should go, leave you alone. But ... um ... it was good to catch up.”

He’d got to his feet, rewrapping the scarf around his neck, and was heading for the door when Daichi reached out. And he had no idea what instinct had caused him to grab Suga’s jacket hem, but he knew it was important, and he didn’t let go.

“Stay, will you?” he mumbled.

“You want me to?”

Daichi nodded.

“Even after I crashed your party and then compounded that by breaking into your bedroom because I couldn’t face you.”

“We’re face to face now,” Daichi said. “And ...” He took a breath. Kuroo had accused him of being boring, dull, wallpaper, a background character. And maybe he was, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t take action. “I’ve missed you, Koushi. I never understood why you left so abruptly.”

An unaccountably sad expression flickered across Suga’s face. And the mouth which Daichi remembered so clearly as one so often beaming a flashlight smile, drooped. Somewhere in his mind a memory sparked, its flame more of an ember, but it took Daichi’s breath away.

“That summer,” Daichi murmured. “In the park. You wanted to tell me something.”

They’d been alone, Asahi having no plans for college had found a job, so the three had become two, catching the last dying days of a High School Summer before they moved on.

“We went swimming,” Daichi recalled.

“We did,” Suga replied.

“You were wearing watermelon shorts.” Daichi laughed, and then he stopped because now he thought about it, that had been the last time they’d been alone. Even the day he’d gone to college and invited Suga round to say goodbye, had been met with a flurry of excuses.

“And you were eating watermelon,” Suga murmured. “A seed stuck to your chin.”

“You told me about it, I remember that.”

“But you couldn’t seem to brush it away,” Suga said, and swallowed. “I –”

Suga had picked it off. Or rather he’d smoothed it away with his fingers, his hand cupping Daichi’s chin, and for an infinitesimally small moment, they’d locked looks. Staring into Suga’s eyes, seeing them glisten far more than normal (or was it his own that had suddenly welled) Daichi had begun to reach out, overcome with an urge to run his hands through Suga’s hair, to pout his lips into Suga’s palm.

But something had stopped him, and he’d jerked away, suddenly shy, covering the moment with a chuckle before he sunk his teeth into more watermelon.

“Is that why? Because ... I ... ” Daichi inhaled. “I almost kissed you. But I thought above everything we were friends and we could have talked it out, couldn’t we?”

“It’s because we were friends that I left. I was young and in love and too stupidly shy and scared to do anything about it,” Suga continued, his voice soft. “Confessing to you could so easily have wrecked every memory we had, tainted everything we’d shared. So I thought distance would bring perspective, and a dumb teenage crush would fizzle out. But as time went on, instead of it lessening, that memory compounded in my head and ...” He pulled away. “I’m going. This was a dumb idea.”

_‘All I’m saying, Sawamura, is that you’re not exactly bold.’_

It wasn’t a fluid movement. In his haste, Daichi knocked over the chair, banged into the table and chicaned into the French windows. But it was effective, stopping Suga in his tracks.

“We’re older now,” he muttered, and reached out, cupping Suga’s face in his hands, his thumb smearing an imaginary watermelon seed off his chin. “And maybe this time I’m ready to listen.”


End file.
